So busy

We have been really busy lately and keeping up with the blog has been a low priority. But here are some pictures of things we have been doing. Bright's speech is amazing- he can count up to 14 on his own, knows groups of letters for the ABC song, knows all of his colors, can sing jingle bells on his own, and also loves to sing the 5 Little Pumpkins song. He says Amen at the end of grace at dinner time, likes opening up his advent calendar, goes to 2 story times each week, Stretch 'N Grow, and Together Time, too. We are always doing something.
Bright's first gingerbread house, made out of Graham Crackers,

snugglin'

A cozy spot.



Finger painting in the tub.

Bright and Momma in his closet nest.


Cozy closet nest time.

steamroller

Our days are filled with endless movement, hollering and banging lately. Bright plays out his role as Bob the Builder to a T and is hard to redirect when I cannot take the constant hammering and sawing that goes along with his play. He is also having great fun exploring his vocal capacity and I am thankful that most of the other tenants here are either at work during the day or are retired and semi-hard of hearing, or just don't care about his yeowling. He loves to ask us "Howyadoin" and "whatyadoin", as well as saying "Hey dude." He gets a bit fixated on a theme centered on an exciting event of the day or days ago and will chit chat on and on about it. Thankfully though he has taken to playing a new game of hiding where he lays down and asks to be covered up with a blanket. He lays still and whispers "Hiding". He will stay that way for an increasing longer amount of time these days. My sweet silence!

We, or I, continue the house hunt. It seems so hard to raise a boy in an apartment. Boys seem to be so rowdy or full of life. I hate to keep hushing him. I also would like him to sleep later than 6am but the heavy walkers upstairs are up and at 'em at the crack of dawn every blessed day. So keep us in your prayers that there is some little dump house out there with our name on it.... Preferably in the Town of Jerusalem and with low taxes :)

Here's some pictures.

1,2,3,4,5

Bright has been really chatty over the past few weeks. His vocabulary and sentence length are growing by leaps and bounds. A few days ago he counted to five at lunch and then this afternoon he counted to 10 while he was playing in his room. Okay, he missed the number nine, but still... Then to show it wasn't a fluke, he did it again this evening. Wow! I am impressed. It's not like we work on these skills directly either, just counting out loud when cooking or piling up blocks. He also gets it though books and DVDs too I guess. He likes letters and knows several now. He will sing out blocks of letters in the alphabet randomly throughout the day. QSR, NOP, that kind of thing. The other fun thing he can do is recognize his name in print.

Behaviorally we have entered the terrible twos a bit on the early side of things. Bright just turned 20 months last week and we have seen the signs creeping ever so slowly but now things are really getting rolling. To spare the details, suffice it say we have some very challenging days here and when it's nap time I do a little dance inside for my 2-3 hours of peace that come along with it.

Nothing else new to report. All are healthy here and I am heading to bed.

It's the thought that counts right?!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! And Happy Birthday Andy. He's 28 today! Yahoo. Makes me feel younger! Anyway, we are having dinner guests tonight and I thought I would make him a cake I have never made before- Boston Creme Pie- since he likes the donuts so much. Seemed easy enough as I skimmed through the recipe... skimmed, I remind you. Holy smokes! Like 40 ingredients, 5 hours and a whole slew of swears I now have a lop-sided semi-oozing cake cooling in the fridge that may or may not taste better than it looks. Totally reminded me of the book "Julie and Julia" where a disgruntled government worker decides to "add meaning to her life" by going through Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" book in one year, and nearly loses her mind while doing so... I can assure you that no extra meaning was added to my life while I was struggling to make the homemade custard filling while 19 month old Bright tugged at my legs and demanded to help, or be picked up, or get into mischief in another room, all while I was praying that my egg yolks would not scramble while adding hot milk to them. Another shining moment was folding the egg whites into the batter and then folding the flour into it as well. Folding is such a joke. Can anyone actually ever get the flour to not lump up while doing this, or actually mix in correctly? Not me. I have always loved baking breads and cookies. I think I now know that cakes are not my bag!
Here are some pictures from 2 days ago when I was making pizza crust. Bright really wanted to help so I gave him some really old TVP to scoop and measure and pour. He was in heaven! What a powdery mess though!

He did it!

Bright successfully tinkled in the potty last night! Yahoo!

Let's hope that there is continued success and interest on his part.

Seen and Done

We have been busy here. Colds going around. First me, then Andy and now Bright. Playdate continued as planned, flu shot postponed (perhaps permanently...), last minute playdate canceled due to cold, grape picking session 1 a sucess, grape picking session 2 postponed due to rain, grape picking session 3 a tremendous success. we have frozen batches and batches of concords in various forms- goo for grape pie, skins for grape bread, grape bread itself- now sadly eaten and gone, pulp boiled and strained for making grapple sauce... Phew! Our first session got us 13 pounds in 15 minutes, the second time around we got 16 pounds. Grand total spent for those two trips- $9.

Today we watched a fabulous movie- Once. Check it out if you love music. The soundtrack is great- just burned it and now listening to it again while I type this. Emusic.com has an offer of 35 free songs with a 1 week trial.

We have been surfin' Netflix and really enjoying some of our finds lately. I am hooked on the Riches and Andy loves The Wire. We are working our way through those right now. Checked out the debates as they have been on- on one of the random cable stations that still comes in on the tv in the bedroom- neither one of them really answers any of the questions. Too bad we can't have an a la carte ticket.
First batch of grapes picked- 13 pounds for 4 dollars.

Andy washing and rinsing the grapes.


Showing Bright the baby snail that was attached to a grape.


Bright eating his fave- Organic wild blueberries-frozen. What a mess every time....

Bright shaving for the first time. I thought we would be able to put it off until he was at least 5...

Bright playing with the brussel sprout stalk from the Farmers' Market today.


Wearing Andy's jacket before he left for work.


Bright's new desk- hand me down from great neighbors who are moving away. :(



Bright seems to rarely be without his construction helmet these days- or Truction helmet as he calls it. A good thing given all the spills he takes ramming around now.

10 things I love about my boy

Instead of losing perspective from another tough day, I have decided to list the things I love so much about my guy. Here they are in no particular order.

1. Bright loves music- particularly Weezer's Red Album. He asks for it by name. He has been exposed to all kinds, except country, and seems to rock out to all of them. Must have had something to do with the Ratatat show we took him to when I was just about ready to give birth.

2. Bright has a great vocabulary. He doesn't just spit out words he has heard, but uses them appropriately. He uses words like visor to describe one hat vs another, he calls my dirty tissues gnarly, he knows a leopard from other big cats, knows the names of construction equipment, etc. The best is when he is just about to fall asleep and he says something random like "Pilchard", the cat from Bob the Builder, or "pinto" from the beans he ate at dinner. He takes it all in and it swirls around inside his little head, only to bring it back out when you least expect it.

3. He is our red-headed veggie boy, as Jaimie likes to call him. Thank goodness that a boy raised in a vegetarian household likes veggies. His two favorite foods are broccoli and tofu. They were some of his first words after daddy. He ate brussel sprouts with me yesterday at lunch, nodded his head and said good when I asked him if he liked them.

4. He never gets sick. He has had one or two junior sized colds, 1 ear infection, roseola, and maybe pink eye but we stopped giving him the drops three days after starting them because he stopped looking pink the day after we got them. I don't think his scratched cornea counts as a sickness. Just stupidity on our part.

5. He loves, loves, loves the people he loves. He talks about grammy and grampy all the time. He remembers everything he does with them. He remembered that Shay went on a canoe ride when she was here, all on his own without prompts. He talks about Monty jumping on the screen door and Tibby being naughty because she eats the plants. He sobs when daddy goes to "workies" and knows he has a job and will be home at lunch time. He has a strong attachment to Uncle Matt, and not just because of Margo :)

6. He likes to say "Sugar" and give you a big sloppy kiss and hug, out of the blue. I don't know who taught him to say "sugar", maybe Kyle? Whoever it was, thank you. It is really sweet.

7. He loves the things his daddy loves. GI Joe guys, vehicles of all kinds, outdoor moon hunts, wrestling, playing ball, working in the garden.

8. He is smart as whip and this is a source of frustration at times for him when he wants something done just a certain way and cannot communicate it properly to us, or his little body can't make it happen on his own. He knows what he wants, watches others do it first and then gets it on his own.

9. He has his daddy's nose and my curls.

10. He loves to have his teeth flossed. Who knew a baby would be into that? He saw me do it one day and asked what it was and we tried it. He calls it "mint" because of the mint flavor. He'll randomly ask for it during the day. Once a day is all he gets and he never bites when I do it.

and a bonus-He's all mine, all day.